Quality of Art and Stories of Current Comic Books

[GotToHaveComics]

Is current comic books stories and art better as compared to the 80s and 90s?

What do you think?

[chrisco37]

Hard to pick a "winner". The new books that I buy now, I enjoy as mouch or more than the stuff I was buying off the racks in the late 80's, early 90's.

 

For example, Ultimate Spider-Man is so much better than Amazing Spidey from that time period. I really enjoy the current FF more now; it's having it's best run since Stan Lee.

 

On the flip side, I didn't read Sandman "back in the day", but have read it in trades since. I think it blows away anything done now. Also, my man, SteveB turned me onto the genius that is Rick Veitch, and his stuff from the 80's-90's is unreal!!!!

 

There are certain writers and artists that will always put out good quality material, regardless of the time period. But, overall, I think I like the newer comics better' but I was reading all the Spidey books, Ghost Rider, Xforce, etc....back then, so I wasn't doing myself any favors based on "quality".

 

Chris

[Ian_Levine]

Taking this subject matter one step further, and being in a position to judge, I have to say that the overall quality of the storylines of the super heroes groups has lost so very much since the 1960s.

The two prime examples - the current JLA and JSA titles can't hold a candle to the classic Justice League of America, and All-Star titles.

The sheer entertainment value of a story involving an alien threat where the JLA splits up into three groups of about three members per group, to tackle three parts of the menace in three different and fabulous and exotic locations, then comes together in the final chaper to resolve the threat.

Or the Legion of Super Heroes. How can today's punk-influenced storylines hold a torch to the classics of Adventure Comics, such as rembrances of the battle with the Fatal Five to save the universe, or where Universo takes over as the President and taints the world's water supply to subjugate the populace ?

These were real plotted stories with twists and turns, less character driven but far more story driven.

I yearn for a return to this kind of storytelling.

It works for Tom Strong and all the Americas Best stuff ............

(Funny how it's become DC by default)

[fantastic_four]

Is current comic books stories and art better as compared to the 80s and 90s?

 

As far as Marvel comics go, the stories and art are better, although they don't create great new characters as much as they did in the 1960s when Lee and Kirby were given license to go on a creative tear. Marvel is an entirely different company today, however, and as much as I like him, I don't think a young Stan Lee would have any more success today than the other creators are having.

 

The hardest thing about asking collectors to compare today's comics to yesterday's comics is that our own tastes have evolved over the years, and in many cases were partially defined by comics from the past, so there is a natural bias to give the comics of our youth a measure of slack that we no longer cut to more recent comics. It's extremely difficult to overcome this bias; I meet few people who are able to do it.